A chart palette has to work for more than the person who chose it. Paste the series colours to see which pairs merge for readers with colour-vision deficiency or in a greyscale printout, whether each colour stands out from light and dark backgrounds, and whether the palette can carry an order.
Pairs closer than ΔE00 10 are flagged: Colourwise’s working threshold for small chart marks read at a glance.
✓ All pairs distinct
Closest pair: 1 (#E69F00) and 4 (#F0E442), ΔE00 21.7.
✓ All pairs distinct
Closest pair: 5 (#0072B2) and 7 (#CC79A7), ΔE00 12.3.
✓ All pairs distinct
Closest pair: 1 (#E69F00) and 4 (#F0E442), ΔE00 11.6.
✕ 2 confusable pairs
✕ 7 confusable pairs
WCAG 2.2 asks for 3:1 between a graphical object needed to understand content and what is next to it. Lines, points and small bars depend on this; large filled areas with direct labels depend on it less.
| Colour | On white (#FFFFFF) | On near-black (#121212) | L* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (#E69F00) | 2.25:1 ✕ below 3:1 | 8.32:1 ✓ | 71 |
| 2 (#56B4E9) | 2.31:1 ✕ below 3:1 | 8.12:1 ✓ | 70 |
| 3 (#009E73) | 3.42:1 ✓ | 5.48:1 ✓ | 58 |
| 4 (#F0E442) | 1.32:1 ✕ below 3:1 | 14.17:1 ✓ | 89 |
| 5 (#0072B2) | 5.19:1 ✓ | 3.61:1 ✓ | 46 |
| 6 (#D55E00) | 3.87:1 ✓ | 4.84:1 ✓ | 54 |
| 7 (#CC79A7) | 3.06:1 ✓ | 6.12:1 ✓ | 61 |
Lightness goes up and down across the palette. That is fine for unordered categories, but as a sequential or ranked scale readers would misjudge which values are higher.